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Monday, June 24, 2024

Assange Will Take A Deal!

Time served. Controversial figure Julian Assange will be released from British and U.S. custody. His white privilege led him to leaking U.S. secrets and meddling in the 2016 election. He will be sent to Australia with restrictions.

Deal or no deal.

Winners and losers of 2024.

Julian Assange will lose his ability to travel outside of Australia. He will banned travel to over 140 countries. He will be no longer able to run Wikileaks and obtain classified state secrets from countries. 

He will be free once he sets foot on Australian soil.

He will face a federal judge in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands this week to accept a plea deal that the U.S. Justice Department granted him.

Assange who fought to not be sitting in a federal time out awaiting trial on the continental U.S. soil will accept guilt for stealing and distribution of classified documents from Chelsea Manning.

The whole ordeal was 15 years of turmoil for the founder of Wikileaks. He spent about 5.4 years in a British Federal Lock. 

After he was unceremoniously booted from the Ecuadorian embassy in London after numerous violations of trust, Assange went to lock up and literally went total mental case.

But now he is expected to be extradited from Great Britian to the U.S. commonwealth within hours. He will make his first appearance in court on Tuesday night (Wednesday at 9am in the Northern Mariana Islands).

Assange was charged by criminal information — which typically signifies a plea deal — with conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information, the court documents say. A letter from Justice Department official Matthew McKenzie to U.S. District Judge Ramona Manglona of the Northern Mariana Islands District said that Assange would appear in court to plead guilty and that the Justice Department expects he will return to Australia, his country of citizenship, after the proceedings.

Manglona is the Chief Justice of the District Court of the Northern Mariana Islands and was appointed by then president Barack Obama.

U.S. charges against Assange stem from one of the largest publications of classified information in American history, which took place during President Barack Obama's first term. Starting in late 2009, according to the government, Assange conspired with Chelsea Manning, a military intelligence analyst, to use his WikiLeaks website to disclose tens of thousands of activity reports about the war in Afghanistan, hundreds of thousands of reports about the war in Iraq, hundreds of thousands of State Department cables and assessment briefs of detainees at the U.S. detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Looks like Assange was eating good.

Court documents revealing Assange's plea deal were filed Monday evening in U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean. Assange was expected to appear in that court and to be sentenced to 62 months, with credit for time served in British prison, meaning he would be free to return to Australia, where he was born.

Assange has been held in the high-security Belmarsh Prison on the outskirts of London for five years, and he previously spent seven years in self-exile at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London — where he reportedly fathered two children — until his asylum was withdrawn and he was forcibly carried out of the embassy and arrested in April 2019. A superseding indictment was returned more than five years ago, in May 2019, and a second superseding indictment was returned in June 2020.

Assange has been fighting extradition for more than a decade: first in connection with a sex crimes case in Sweden, then in connection with the case against him in the United States. In March, the High Court in London gave him permission for a full hearing on his appeal as he sought assurances that he could rely upon the First Amendment at a trial in the U.S. In May, two judges on the High Court said he could have a full hearing on whether he would be discriminated against in the U.S. because he is a foreign national. A hearing on the issue of Assange's free speech rights had been scheduled for July 9-10.

WikiLeaks also published hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee that upended the 2016 presidential race. Russian intelligence officers were subsequently indicted in connection with the hacking in 2018 in a case brought by then-special counsel Robert Mueller. At a joint news conference with then-President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin days later, Trump contradicted the indictment and the intelligence community, saying Putin was "extremely strong and powerful in his denial" that Russians interfered in the 2016 election to help him win.

Manning was sentenced to 35 years in a military prison, but Obama commuted her sentence in the final days of his presidency in 2017. Manning was subsequently held in contempt of court for nearly a year after she refused to answer questions for a grand jury; she was then released after an attempted suicide.

Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (Lifeline) at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or 988, or text the Crisis Text Line (text HELLO to 741741). Both services are free and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The deaf and hard of hearing can contact the Lifeline via TTY at 1-800-799-4889. All calls are confidential. Contact social media outlets directly if you are concerned about a friend’s social media updates or dial 911 in an emergency. Learn more on the Lifeline’s website or the Crisis Text Line’s website.

You can get help if you, loved one or friend are dealing with drug abuse.

SAMHSA’s National Helpline: 1-800-662-HELP (4357)

SAMHSA’s National Helpline is a free, confidential, 24/7, 365-day-a-year treatment referral and information service (in English and Spanish) for individuals and families facing mental and/or substance use disorders.

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